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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30039126">if you were here, if i could touch you</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatkindofnameisella/pseuds/whatkindofnameisella'>whatkindofnameisella</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Violence, ep 129 spoilers, im back baybe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:14:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>680</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30039126</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatkindofnameisella/pseuds/whatkindofnameisella</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>And here she is smiling at him, helping him, reassuring him and caring for him and not showing a single grimace for a moment of it, and – he thinks there has never been a moment where he has so desperately wished he could heal. Wished he could do anything but burn with his hands.</p>
<p>In a quiet moment, Caleb holds Jester's hand. ep 129 spoilers.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>71</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>if you were here, if i could touch you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i like to disappear for 3 months at a time and come back complaining of learning how to write again. helps me keep up my mystery.</p>
<p>this title comes from Mary Oliver's poem "Postcard from Flamingo", which is absolutely beautiful itself. please enjoy :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He holds her hand.</p>
<p>It has been the longest day of Caleb’s life. Longer than his first day at the Soltryce Academy, longer than the agonizing, pacing day before he returned home for the last time, longer than the day he escaped Vergessen and ran and ran for <em>hours</em>. Longer, even, than the day Yasha had returned, and then they had spent that fighting and nearly dying for hours on end. Caleb thinks he has fought enough in this day to last him a lifetime. Maybe once they are in Zadash he can hang up his coat and put away his books and wait for Aeor to rise out of the Astral Sea and kill them all, chivalry be damned. He is sick of it.</p>
<p>But Zadash is hundreds of miles and a plane shift away from this horrible place. This – <em>horrible</em> place, leaving them sweaty and bloody and burned, Jester’s boots she’s so neatly crossed beneath her burnt through to the charred skin beneath. His stomach turns at the sight of it. And here she is smiling at him, helping him, reassuring him and caring for him and not showing a single grimace for a moment of it, and – he thinks there has never been a moment where he has so desperately wished he could heal. Wished he could do anything but burn with his hands.</p>
<p>“We’re a family now,” she says, eyes desperate and determined and oh, she won’t let him talk circles out of this one, will she, “This is – this is what we do.” There’s a pause, singed hairs curling in the stagnant air, and she breathes before, “And we’re going to fix this.” </p>
<p>Desperation overflows from her, he thinks, drowning in the hard set of her eyes, it overflows – in the tightness of her shoulders, the hard set of her mouth, the endless grasping of her hand as she speaks to him. Desperation to live, to sleep. Desperation to cry, and not to show it. And today has been <em>so long</em>, and his throat aches with the tears held back, and all he wants is to – </p>
<p>say things too long held within him, selfish and true and so close now to the tip of his tongue, to reach out and grasp the side of her face and <em>heal</em>, and – </p>
<p>There’s too much to say and not enough time or ways to say it, so he holds her hand. Lets the cool ice of it seep into his palm, holding his slowly crumbling self here, with her, to the ground. Maybe, one day, she won’t have to say these things for him to know it, and he looks to the violet of her eyes and feels the hope of it burn shamefully bright in his chest.</p>
<p>But that’s someday. Today he is tired and sweaty and gripping the collar she just fixed with white knuckles, and trying not to cry as he says, “<em>Ja</em>, I’ll keep trying to remind myself of that.” And she nods and tells him to sleep, and he thinks that’s a foolish notion but agrees regardless, and – </p>
<p>She stays there, for just a moment, letting her hand be held by him, and he is grateful for it. And maybe she doesn’t love him, and maybe too much fire has finally clouded his mind and he’s going insane, at last, but - somewhere beneath the desperation and pain he thinks he sees her take a breath, just the slightest bit deeper than the one before it. And he breathes at that too, heart breaking, at the thought of her comfort. </p>
<p>Maybe, together, they’ll make it through all of this.</p>
<p>But first, sleep. But first – her mother walks around the corner, and he bites his tongue until it bleeds, and there is a strange triumph to it. First he must curl up, back turned, ruby light glowing from the collar grasped in his hands, working for the future to come. First night must push past this horrible day, and eventually he closes his eyes, the thought of her hand in his lulling him to sleep.</p>
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